Gay Sports Groups Sprout Up on Campus

[davidinalameda]

http://www.outsports.com/os/index.php/2008021861/Campus/News/Gay-Sports-Groups-Sprout-Up-on-Campus.html

It's been over two decades since the winds of queer change swept through college campuses. Across America, universities now sponsor GLBT centers, offer gender studies programs, and pledge never to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. "Out" has become the new "in" - everywhere, that is, except the locker room.

Finally, even that is changing. As a young generation of students - raised in a world where Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) are as much a part of high school as proms and zits - enters college, they're coming out not just in classrooms and fraternities, but on their sports teams as well.

And - fueled by that same GSA mentality - they're starting to form gay student-athlete groups.

"These organizations are about to explode," says Pat Griffin (left). She should know: As director of It Takes a Team - a project aimed at eliminating homophobia in sports - as well as a former basketball, field hockey, and swimming coach, and as professor emerita of social justice at the University of Massachusetts, she has a front-row seat as the movement begins.